ATMORE, NOV 22 – A man from Alabama who was convicted of killing a tourist in 1994 was executed by nitrogen gas at the William C Holman Prison, south Alabama, yesterday.
Carey Dale Grayson, 50, became the third person in the United States to be executed using the method.
He is one of four teenagers convicted of killing Vickie DeBlieux, 37, as she was riding in a car on her way to her mother’s home in Louisiana. The victim was beaten, attacked and thrown from the cliff.
The nitrogen gas method, which Alabama introduced earlier this year, involves using a gas mask to replace the air with pure nitrogen gas, causing death from lack of oxygen.
Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner John Q Hamm said nitrogen gas was passed for 15 minutes. An electrocardiogram showed Grayson no longer had a heartbeat about 10 minutes after the gas flow began.
“Like the previous two cases, Grayson was seen shaking occasionally before periodically taking deep breaths,” Hamm said.
Meanwhile, the victim’s daughter told reporters after the sentencing that her mother had lost her future, but criticized Grayson’s execution saying that ‘killing prisoners in the name of justice’ was unjustified.
The curtains of the execution room opened shortly after 6pm. Grayson, strapped to a stretcher with a blue-rimmed gas mask, uttered profanities as the warden asked about his last words.
The prison turned off the microphone after that. Grayson was seen speaking towards the witness box where government officials were present, but his speech could not be heard. When the punishment process started, he managed to raise both middle fingers. – AP
